


No Good Man

by Sad Cowboy Malone (NobleMalone)



Series: Blood, Hatred, Money, and Rage [1]
Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Bad Decisions, Bad Parenting, Bad Sex, Canon-Typical Violence, Childhood Sexual Abuse, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Dubious Consent, Hurt No Comfort, I'm Sorry, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, No Spoilers, Pederasty, Period Typical Attitudes, Physical Abuse, Pre-Canon, Teen Arthur Morgan, Threesome - F/M/M, Underage Sex, Young Arthur Morgan, Young John Marston, if you're looking for a Good Dutch fic, just bad, this is not it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-03
Updated: 2019-02-03
Packaged: 2019-10-21 11:40:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17642111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NobleMalone/pseuds/Sad%20Cowboy%20Malone
Summary: Sometimes, in the middle of the night, he’d crawl into Arthur’s bed and just hold him, not saying anything at all, just holding him so close Arthur could hear the man’s heart, pounding angry and afraid against his breastbone. Maybe that’s when Arthur’d first known it, deep down in his twisting guts; he could never leave, even if he wanted to.---Dutch had raised him up to be a good man, but Dutch ain't no good man.





	No Good Man

**Author's Note:**

> Please mind the tags with regards to potentially triggering material

It’s dark, save for the blue light of the near-full moon, as Arthur stumbles sore and satiated into the tent he shares with John. They’re living scarce and rough right now, just the four of them with near nothing but the clothes on their back, and someone has to keep tabs on the boy; so as it stands, even if he’s nineteen and a man in his own right, he bunks with John. Dutch had put his foot down, and made it abundantly clear it was not up for discussion – both he and John still have the bruises to remind them of that much.

 

Arthur tries to be quiet, to not wake the boy, but he is drunk on stolen liquor and Dutch’s attention. He can’t help but flop onto his narrow cot, pull off his boots and drop them to the ground with a soft thunk, and bury his face in the rolled up shirt he uses as a pillow. It is made of soft cotton and smells like Dutch.

 

He is just drifting off into sleep when he hears John’s voice, crackly with the beginnings of puberty, loud in the dark and quiet of the night.

 

“You ain’t gotta let him do that to you, y’know.”

 

The crack of a match and the flash of a flame follow; John lights a cigarette, takes a deep drag. Smoking in bed, a habit they’d tried to break him of. As with all things, John is a slow learner.

 

Arthur is silent, shocked sober by the statement. How does John know? He stays quiet, hoping John will think he’s asleep and shut the hell up.

 

Instead, John keeps talking to the darkness, his voice low.

 

“My daddy used to do that to me, 'fore he passed. Said it was payback, what he was owed seeing as I killed my mama tryin' to get born and all. Even after he got blind. Kinda made me glad to see him dead.”

 

He says it so matter-of-factly, Arthur knows its no tall tale. No one would want to fess to a thing like that unless it were true, anyway.

 

“Pastor at the orphanage did it to me, too. Not the same way, but just as bad, I’d say. Maybe worse, even – at least when my daddy did it he knew I hated it.

“Father Marcus, he said he wanted to help me, help me feel God's love. That it was good, that I’d like it. 'Cept I didn’t. But he was so sure and I was - I was just a kid.”

 

The way John’s voice cracks and falters for the briefest moment twists in Arthur’s gut like a knife. He burns like the tip of John’s cigarette, hot and red in the dark.

 

“After I left, I swore ain’t no one was ever gonna do that to me again,” John continues. His voice is hard and hateful, all the anger and pain of a man long-lived, packed into the body of a boy. Arthur’s heart aches.

 

“That’s why I killed that fella, you know. Blew a hole clean through the fucker. If I’d’a had to swing for killin' a man what wanted to stick his cock up little boys' asses, it'd've been worth it.”

 

He pauses, takes a long drag of the cigarette. Exhales noisily, a resigned sigh.

 

“If Dutch ever tried that shit on me, there wouldn’t be enough left of him to bury. Trust me on that one. It just ain’t right.”

 

Silence surrounds them for a moment, save for the sound of John smoking – inhale, hold, exhale.

 

The smell of it burns in Arthur’s nostrils. He is a thin line of tension and terror, of barely contained rage. He hates those men for what they did to John, who even now is still little more than a boy. Hates John, too, for thinking that Dutch is anything like those sick fucks – Dutch ain’t like them, and what he and Dutch do ain’t like that. It’s special.

 

John’s cigarette has grown short; Arthur can hear him tap ash onto the soft dirt that serves as the floor of their tent.

 

“It ain’t like that,” Arthur says finally, his voice quiet and soft. He wants to sound adamant and sure, but he can’t bring himself to yell at John. Not right now.

 

In response, John huffs out a quiet, derisive laugh.

 

“It ain’t. I like it.” Arthur has never admitted this to anyone else, never even said it so plainly to Dutch, but he knows it’s true. He likes the way it makes him feel - not just the way Dutch’s hands feel on him, the way their bodies feel together, but how it feels to have Dutch’s attention on him and only him. How it feels to make Dutch happy, to be special in that way. It feels good.

 

“D'you like it 'cause you like it, or do you like it 'cause Dutch does?”

 

Arthur isn’t sure, doesn’t know why it matters, but he knows better than to play this game with John. He ain’t good with words and they both know it.

 

“What I’d like is for you to keep your god damn mouth shut. You goan make me shut it for you?”

 

Silence. The butt of John’s cigarette drops to the ground and it’s almost like Arthur can hear the little pissant shrugging smuggly.

 

“’Sides, what’s a kid like you know 'bout what men get up to, anyhow?”

  
  
John’s reply is to hum through closed lips, intimating speech while keeping his god damn mouth shut. Thinks he’s so funny; Arthur knows without seeing that John is smiling, closed-mouthed, like it’s the greatest joke in the world.

 

Arthur smiles, too, when he throws one of his boots and hears the hard thud of it hit, and John’s yelped “Ouch!” that follows.

 

***

 

Arthur doesn’t remember where Hosea or anyone’d been, that night – just remembers he’d been about six weeks out from his sixteenth birthday, and it’d been after a mighty haul. Rich oil baron with too much money and a collection of dusty old books that’d gotten Dutch all fired up.

 

Dutch’d invited Arthur to his tent to have a look, and Arthur’d been all for it; he was still learning how to read, then, had been excited to move on from the Brother’s Grimm and Poe to more substantial stuff. Stuff like what Dutch read.

 

Of the pile of books, Arthur’s young eyes had been drawn to one immediately, one which'd stood out from the rest. The only black book in a pile of reds and greens and blues, and thicker than the rest, too, with fine gold filigree on the spine. He still remembers the title, stamped in gold on the front: _The Lives and Machinations of the Greeks and Romans of Antiquity_. When he grabbed it, Dutch had lit up with enthusiasm, as if Arthur had made the right choice, and it’d made Arthur feel good.

 

“Now that, my dear boy, is a fine publication,” Dutch had exclaimed, taking the book from him and flipping through pages quickly. “Full of pictures and information to spark those artistic sensibilities of yours.”

 

But Dutch’s face had grown pensive, brow furrowed with concern, cigar held between his teeth the way he did when he was deeply troubled.

 

“However, if memory serves, it is a difficult read. I don’t know if you’re quite ready for the task, son.”

 

Arthur remembers the hint of a challenge in Dutch's voice, how he’d so badly wanted to prove Dutch wrong, show him that he was just as smart as Dutch wanted him to be.

 

“Aw shit, it can’t be that hard,” Arthur’d replied, with all the bravado of the teenage boy he was. “Give’er here, lemee give it a go.”

 

Dutch had laughed. “Alright, boy. C'mere.” With the book held open in one hand, cigar in his mouth, he’d patted his knee.

 

Never once did Arthur question why, when he read with Dutch, he always sat on the man’s knee – that’s just the way it’d always been, since Dutch first decided he needed to learn reading. He s’posed it made it easier for Dutch to read along over his shoulder, making sure what was being said was what was being read. Arthur didn’t mind it none, neither. Liked the way Dutch’s hand would rest on his thigh, squeezing gently every time he overcame a challenging word, or how Dutch would absently run the knuckles of his hand up and down Arthur’s side, like stroking a good dog. It made Arthur feel good.

 

So he’d climbed onto Dutch's knee and settled himself there. It’d be a year or two still before he outgrew Dutch in height, and even more before he filled out to become the thick, hard-bodied man he is now. He’d still been as small as Dutch always made him feel, back then.

 

The book’d had a great many pictures, and Dutch hadn’t lied; the art had been of great interest to Arthur, and he’d spent more time flipping through the pages examining the pictures than actually reading, the whole time aware of Dutch watching over his shoulder, watching him. As if looking for a reaction.

 

Arthur doesn’t remember what made him stop on that particular page, whether Dutch had said something that made him give the image there a second glance, or if it had been the image itself what gave him pause; he just remembers the image, as if the lithograph had been pressed directly to his brain.

 

It was a painting on an old clay pot, depicting a man and a boy, the boys chin held in the man’s hand, as if being drawn in. The man’s other hand on the boys bare ass, maybe pulling him closer. A second picture showed the other side of the artifact, a rendering of what might be the same man and boy, sitting not unlike how Arthur and Dutch were sat then – the boy in the man’s lap, an arm slung protectively about the boys waist. They were both nude, and the painting was so detailed as to include the head of the man’s penis, peeking out from between the boys thighs.

 

The pictures had made him feel strange; he’d wanted to shut the book and go right then, but something about it had made him stay. Maybe it was the way Dutch’s hand had come to rest high on his thigh as he examined the picture, strong fingers gently pressed into the stringy meat of Arthur’s leg, so near his groin. Maybe it was how Arthur was hard in his pants and suddenly all too aware of it, aware of Dutch’s awareness of it.

 

It weren’t like it was the first time he’d gotten hard, reading with Dutch; it just happened some times, and Dutch was always gentleman enough to ignore it. Arthur just liked the closeness and the feel of it, was all, and Dutch understood. He’d been a boy once, too, after all, had told Arthur that enough to make it true.

 

Arthur remembers the smell of whiskey and cologne and cigar smoke when Dutch had leaned in, lips so close to his ear he could feel hot, damp breath as Dutch spoke, no more than a whisper. Quiet and private and just for Arthur to hear. It made him feel good, to share a secret with Dutch.

 

“The man and his catamite had a truly special bond, Arthur, unlike anything we have here in so-called civilized times,” Dutch'd said, voice low like the rumble of thunder. “Take a boy and raise him up right, teach him everything you know about the world. Don’t hide nothing from him, let him experience all the exquisite pleasures and pains our meager human existence has to offer. Mould him into a man with those few tools, your own hands and your morals. That’s the way to raise up a boy, don’t you think, Arthur?”

 

He hadn’t known what to say. Hadn’t known if he could say anything, his voice – still the voice of a boy – caught in his throat as Dutch rubbed his knuckles over Arthur’s ribs, fingers of his other hand playing idly with a loose string near the fly of Arthur’s ill-fitting jeans. He can’t remember if it was fear or arousal that had him that tongue-tied.

 

“S-sure, Dutch.”

 

“And what better way to breed loyalty, son, than to bond two men in mutual pleasure? Achilles and Patroclus, two of the finest warriors to ever have lived, they shared in each other and it made them nigh unstoppable.

“What about you, Arthur? You wanna be strong? You wanna be loyal? You wanna be raised up to be a _man_ , son?”

 

He'd wanted to run. It had felt so good, Dutch stroking his hard cock through his pants with the back of his hand, as if he didn’t even realize he was doing it; but still, he’d wanted to run.

 

“Y-yeah, I wanna be – I wanna be good.”

 

He’d been so frightened in that moment, of what he wasn’t sure, but Dutch had been there, a smooth low voice in his ear, stroking him through it until Arthur, young and dumb, was coming in his pants. It had felt so good, too good – was the first time he’d come from anything but his own tight, fervent fist. He’d wanted to cry.

 

“I know you do, son,” Dutch'd said, voice full of fondness, as if just by wanting it Arthur was already being it. “You just keep on doing right by me and Hosea and doin' as your told and we’ll make a real fine man outta you just yet. Wait and see.”

 

That night, near six weeks before his sixteenth birthday, had been the first time Dutch had let him take a drag of his cigar, almost like a reward for a job well-done. It’d made the whole night feel like it had been a big step, like a deal had been sealed and he was on his way to getting grown.

 

Sitting on Dutchs knee, jism drying in his pants and sour smoke in his lungs, Dutch commenting with pride on the peach fuzz beginning to shade his jaw, Arthur’d felt something shift and change and he’d known it would never be the same.

 

***

 

It was hot, he remembers, a sweltering August night, round a year and a half after the first time, with the book and the cigar and the unspoken promise.

 

Arthur’d never been happier. He’d become like Dutch’s right hand, indispensable and ever-present at his side; where before he was simply Dutch’s favourite, just a boy, now he was a man, one of Dutch’s men, included in the plans and operations and livelihood of the family. Like a son, raised up to follow in his daddy’s footsteps. Dutch’d even begun to teach him arithmetic, fractions and percentages for dealing with finances. It’d felt like another big step in the right direction.

 

But in spite of it all, on that hot August night, Arthur’d caught the worst kind of shit. It’d be the first, but far from the only time Dutch'd beat him that way – sure, he’d been whooped before, plenty of times, by Dutch and Hosea and even Anabel, before she’d passed. But that time it’d been different, not just disciplinary, but raw and angry and painful in a way that’d left both he and Dutch aching for days after, in very different ways but always in tandem; Arthur in his pride and in his bones, Dutch – Dutch, in his heart, probably.

 

He’d gotten himself into a heap of trouble in the dusty border town they posted up in near three months prior. A dispute over gambling debts owed, and the fella’d pulled a knife; managed to catch Arthur on the chin with it, quick and vicious, before Dutch had clocked the man hard enough to knock him clean out on the saloon floor.

 

Dutch hadn’t said anything, afterwards, neither, just grabbed Arthur by the arm and hauled him the short walk back to camp, steaming like a pot about to boil over.

 

At camp, Dutch had thrown him to the ground, hard enough that Arthur’s cheek had scraped along the rocky soil, burning a scabby hole that’d last well into September. By that time, he’d been taller than Dutch by just a hair’s breadth, but still lanky and awkward with youth, easy enough for Dutch to push around if Arthur let him.

 

Arthur remembers the fear, the moment of terror as Dutch had drawn his belt from the loops of his fine black trousers – not here, not like this, it was their secret, a good secret. It wasn’t violent or ugly or public like this.

 

The reality was only a small and temporary relief.

 

He’d rucked up Arthur’s shirt and hauled down his jeans to expose the pale, soft skin of his back and buttocks, and had stood over him and beat him mercilessly with the belt. Let it lick over Arthur’s body until he was mottled black and blue and red from the small of his back to the backs of his thighs, and hot tears of shame and pain burned paths down his cheeks. The bruises had been so deep, they too had lasted well into the fall, and had ached something fierce whenever he rode for a good month after.

 

The final three strokes had cut him up something vicious, landed hard, with the ornate gold buckle heavy and sharp enough to break skin and bring blood bubbling up in long, thin lines above Arthur’s tailbone. He can still see the silvery slivers of the scars if he twists the right way in the mirror – years later, when Mary had asked about them, he’d lied to her.

 

Before he’d walked away, Dutch had leaned down low to murmur in Arthur’s ear, voice low and growling with wrath.

 

“You act like a boy, expect to get _beat_ like a boy, son.”

 

 

Hosea had been the one to lift Arthur from the dirt and help him to the tent – he’d been sharing with Dutch, then, as if they could somehow grow even closer in the late night hours – and had laid Arthur out on the soft furs of Dutch’s cot. He’d used a strong-smelling tincture on a damp cloth to rub down berry-red welts on Arthur’s back, but hadn’t pulled Arthur’s trousers down to do the same for his bruised ass. Hosea was proper like that; it wasn’t til years later that Arthur’d learned Hosea had taken great umbrage with the way Dutch had started to educate the boy, but like most things, Hosea’s protests had been swallowed up in the gale of Dutch’s indomitable will.

 

As Hosea had wiped him down, cooing soft condolences to him in a way that reminded Arthur much more of a mother than a father, Arthur had hid his face in his crossed arms, as if he could hide the burn of shame and heartbroken betrayal from the only other man in the world what knew him as good as Dutch did.

 

“He’s not angry with you, Arthur,” Hosea had told him.

 

“Sure _felt_ like he was angry.” He couldn’t help the boyish petulance in his voice. It’d hurt.

 

“Sure, but he ain’t angry with you, son. He’s angry with, with the situation, as it were. He just don’t know how to handle it right.”

 

The lesson Hosea had imparted on him then was one Arthur would never forget, tied so tightly to the beating it was as if the lesson came from the both of them, and that’d made it stick.

 

“All anger is born of fear, Arthur. When Dutch is mean, it ain’t on account of him being cruel, it’s on account of him being scared. You coulda died.”

  
  
He’d held Arthur’s shoulder as he spoke, squeezing gently, as if he could press the lesson into Arthur’s skin.

 

“You’re a son to him, to the both of us. You acting like a man, gettin’ into a man’s kind of trouble, that’s scary. You can’t fault him for being afraid for you.”

 

Hosea was wise and he was right, Arthur’d known it then and knows it today. He’d thought of his dog, how angry he’d been when the mutt'd come back with a snout full of porcupine quills – not angry 'cause of what happened but 'cause of what coulda happened.

 

Still, he ain’t hit his dog.

 

 

 

Dutch had wandered back to their tent late that night, so late it was early, breath stinking of cognac and cigar smoke, eyes wet and bloodshot. By dim, flickering lamplight, he’d massaged salve into the hot, sore skin of Arthur’s rear, peppering the bruises with kisses and whispered apologies and perhaps even a drunken, remorseful tear or two. He’d even kissed at the soft, sensitive skin of his taint, lapped at the private place between Arthur’s cheeks and massaged him with a pair of strong, confident fingers until Arthur had been so hard, and come in messy spurts across the furs of the bed and his own tight-muscled thighs.

 

That’d been the first time Dutch had slipped his hot, hard cock between Arthur’s thighs, sore as they were, and fucked between them, Arthur’s own seed slicking the way. Had brought about his own absolution that way, and Arthur can still remember the deep, low rumble of a groan the man had made when he spilled his release over Arthur’s burning bruises.

 

Afterwards, he’d pressed soft, sorry kisses to the top of Arthur’s sweat-damp hair, had told him how sorry he was, how proud he was of Arthur for taking it all like a man, and had let Arthur fall asleep tucked up against him, cradled in Dutch’s arms.

 

***

 

They'd picked up John, young and scrawny and looking more like a dog with mange than a real boy, that October, and soon after they’d been on the move again, heading south along the Sierra Nevadas to the warm embrace of Mexican winter.

 

In a stroke of supremely bad luck, however, Arthur’d come down with a burning fever that Miss Grimshaw, who’d joined up with them barely three weeks past after the “accidental” death of the Mr Grimshaw, had pronounced to be typhoid. She’d been younger then, but no less severe, and had said it plainly, had told Dutch they weren’t gunna be moving from the abandoned homestead the eight or so of them had shacked up in, not unless he wanted to ensure the boy an early death. So they’d spent the winter eeking out a living swindling and cattle-rustling to get by, until spring came and Bobby Denningers boys had come 'round to chase them straight outta state.

 

To be honest, though, Arthur remembers precious little of that winter, ill as he was – first with typhoid that laid him low, then a pneumonia what kept him down for the better part of the season. Even when he’d finally surfaced from the fever and the chills, he’d been so worn ragged he’d shuffled around the farmhouse like a consumptive ghost, clothes hanging loose from his hungry frame. It’d taken late into the spring for him to gain the weight back.

 

What he does remember from that winter isn’t good; feverish delirium had tinted everything in sickly hues of fear and misery and an unnameable, uncertain distress.

 

He remembers being afraid of dying, and then being afraid of not dying, of having to suffer the pain and the chills and the laboured, wheezing gasps for an eternity. Remembers seeing the Virgin Mary standing in ghostly white at his bedside, too tired to do anything but stare until she’d faded into the blackness of the night. Remembers calling, breathless and weak, for Dutch to come to him, only to realize Dutch was there, cradling Arthur’s head in his lap, pressing a cool damp cloth to his forehead in an attempt to keep the fever at bay.

 

There’d been times he’d heard, through the fog of delirium, Dutch's voice, quiet and low and the only thing keeping Arthur tethered down on earth where he belonged. Could never tell who Dutch was speaking to, just that Dutch was there, and that soothed him enough.

 

“Hush, my dear boy,” he’d whisper. “I’m here. Stay here with me, Arthur. Stay here and rest, my love. Don’t you go on me. Stay.”

 

Other times, his voice would tremble as he spoke, as if death were in the room with them.

 

“Hosea, our son is dying. He is dying in my arms and there ain’t a thing in the world I can do to save him.” A wracked, heaving sob – who had been crying, then? “I cannot bury our son, I can’t.”

 

And once, only once, when Arthur’d been gripping Dutch’s sleeves so tight, mumbling deliriously and shaking with fever chills;  
“Please, God, not my boy. Don’t take my boy. I know I done wrong, but don’t take him yet. Don’t take my boy.”

 

For months after, even once he was well again, Dutch would scarcely let Arthur out of his sight for more than a minute or two, as if afraid Arthur would be snatched up by Satan as soon as guards were down.

 

Sometimes, in the middle of the night, he’d crawl into Arthur’s bed and just hold him, not saying anything at all, just holding him so close Arthur could hear the man’s heart, pounding angry and afraid against his breastbone. Maybe that’s when Arthur’d first known it, deep down in his twisting guts; he could never leave, even if he wanted to.

 

***

 

Arthur’s eighteenth birthday had come and gone with little fanfare that spring, the lot of them preoccupied with more pressing matters – even Arthur hadn’t realized until he’d scrawled the date on the first page of a brand new notebook Hosea'd given him.

 

Not three days after, though, had Dutch come to Arthur while he’d been watering the horses, shoving Arthur’s bag into his chest good-naturedly.

 

“Saddle-up, boy,” he’d commanded, grinning like a loon. “It’s high time you had yourself your first woman.”

 

Arthur’d been powerless against that smile and the nervous curiosity rolling in his gut.

 

They’d ridden to a bordello in Allestown, and the stink of the city had followed them into the building and clung to the heavy velvet curtains. Arthur remembers how out of his element he’d felt, still scrawny from sickness and already freckled and burned from the sun – but Dutch had looked so comfortable there, all nouveaux-riche opulence in his rings and watch chains and waistcoat, conversing with the working girls in conspiratorial tones, as if they were old friends.

 

Arthur had swallowed his first whiskey down fast, praying for the burn of liquor to settle his nerves, and had been about to reach for a second when Dutch had caught him by the wrist, gave him a stern look Arthur knew well. That was enough, apparently.

 

“Arthur, I’d like to introduce you to our new friend,” he’d said. “Lucille, this is the one I’d told you about; my boy, Arthur.”

 

She’d looked him up and down with such an intensity that Arthur had felt a blush rise to his cheeks, had hid his eyes with the brim of his hat as he gave her a quiet “ma’am;” it must’ve been funny, the way he shrank like a violet from her gaze, because she laughed.

 

He knew she was Dutch’s favourite of the bunch here, could tell by the way he’d greeted her with a chaste peck on the cheek. Could tell by her eyes, big and blue, the sandy, bronzey blonde of her long hair, the dusting of freckles across her nose and rouged-up cheeks. Knew by the way those freckles trailed down to her breasts, her rouged nipples shrouded only by the sheer, gauzy fabric of her chemise.

 

His arousal had kicked him like a horse, making him feel breathless and putting a pain in his chest as severe as the pneumonia had been.

 

“Lucille here has agreed to cut us one hell of a deal, son, and to handle our unique situation with the utmost tact and discretion. I suggest you thank her.”

 

Dutch’s hand had been warm and heavy on the back of his neck.

 

“Thank you, ma’am.”

 

“That’s my good boy.”

 

 

  
Arthur hadn’t know what to expect, but it hadn’t been this – Dutch guiding him up the stairs with a firm hand on the small of his back, closing the door behind the three of them, helping Arthur shrug off the jacket that still hung a little too loosely on his shoulders.

 

Reclined on the bed, Lucille had spread her legs for them, and Dutch had coaxed Arthur to settle between them. Arthur remembers with stunning clarity how Dutch had murmured in his ear as he’d taken Arthur’s hand and pressed it to the woman’s breast, the shiver that had run down his spine as Dutch had helped guide Arthur’s cock into the tight, warm wetness of her pussy.

 

“That’s my good boy,” Dutch had whispered as Arthur had closed his eyes and clenched his teeth, trying to keep himself from going off from the heat of it all, the way he knew Dutch didn’t want him to. “There you go, just like that, now don’t that feel good? Here, let me show you.”

 

Dutch's hand on his hip had guided him through the motions, through the rolling walk, trot, canter rhythm of fucking, soothing him like a restless stallion the whole way through. Sometimes pressing the occasional kiss to Arthur’s neck, or placing a hand on the back of his head to push his face into the swell of Lucille’s breasts.

 

Arthur’d been breathless and gasping by the time he came, groaning through his orgasm so loudly even Dutch had chuckled at the boyishness of it. He’d still been inside Lucille, half-hard and catching his breath, when he’d felt Dutch’s jism spatter over his back and drip like hot wax down his ass crack.

 

***

 

He remembers, he’d just begun to grow into his height, the summer of his eighteenth year. Getting strong again had been tough after the winter had whittled him down to bones – especially with Dutch mollycoddling him like a newborn lamb. But Arthur’d managed, and slowly but surely the lean, sinewy muscles of his teenage years had begun to give way to a thicker, fuller form. Dutch had praised him for it, his slowly forming man’s body, and had run a possessive hand over Arthur’s well-muscled thigh. In his other hand, he’d held Arthur’s weeping cock, and Dutch’s had been drooling wet lines of pre-cum over the small of his back as he spoke.

 

That summer was the first time Arthur’d been well and truly alone since Dutch and Hosea had taken him in.

 

It’d been after a big score at a high-stakes gambling house in Felicity; Arthur’d cracked the safe quicker than a bullet while the others shook the patrons down, and they’d made off like the bandits they were, no less than $800 in hand and fine collection of gold and jewellery. When the law had caught on, they’d scattered like flies, agreeing to meet back at camp in three days time.

 

But Arthur’d gotten turned around somehow, spent nearly a week wandering the desert in search of civilization, and another week finding his way back home. The whole time, worry burned like liquor in his throat, his brain buzzing like it was full of bugs.

 

What if Dutch was angry with him? What if they thought he’d died? Worse yet, what if Dutch was _disappointed_ in him, thought that Arthur had taken the cash and run, abandoned them all?

 

By the time he’d made it back to camp, wind-whipped and sunburned, Arthur’d been so certain they’d’ve picked up and left without him that he’d let out a dry, astonished sob when he saw the stretched white canvas of Dutch’s tent right where he remembered it being.

 

He hadn’t even bothered to hitch his horse, didn’t even stop to grab a swig of water – simply stumbled into Dutch’s tent, dropped the sack of cash he’d carried like a cross all across the state at Dutch’s feet. Had knelt there, prostrate and relieved, and wordlessly buried his face in the softness of the man’s inner thigh.

 

Arthur remembers how Dutch’s fingers had come to tangle in his dirty hair as Arthur had mouth his way upward to push his face into Dutch’s groin, to inhale the familiar, musky scent of manhood through dry, sobbing breaths. How he hadn’t said anything at all, the both of them robbed of words, overwhelmed by reunion.

 

Arthur hadn’t found his words until after Dutch has shot, searing and salty, down his throat – only then had he begun to sob in earnest, climbing to sit on his knee and curling himself into Dutch’s arms like a boy, apologies spilling like tears as he did.

 

He was sorry, so sorry. He hadn’t meant to leave, didn’t want to go, never meant to be gone for so long; he’d come back, he’d never go again; he wanted to be good, please, he’d be so good from now on. Please don’t be mad. Please don’t leave.

 

Dutch had held him, breath warm and damp as he cooed soothingly in Arthur’s ear. “Don’t you worry, my boy, you done so good.”

 

He’d smelled warm, like smoke and bourbon and summer sweat, and Arthur’d felt sick with it all.

 

“You’re a good boy. I done raised you right, and you done right by me. You came back. You’re a good man, Arthur Morgan.”

**Author's Note:**

> everyone else: poor Arthur let us write fic to give the man the love and comfort he deserves  
> me: yes good  
> also me: but also what if I made it worse 
> 
> I just wanted to explore a different interpretation of the dynamic of the characters ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ sorry if u wanted Nice Dutch tbh so did I.....
> 
> I'm only on chapter 4, so sorry for any errors or inconsistencies. I also am unbeta'd so sorry!!
> 
> bonus: you can now shout at me about sad cowboys on the tumblr i made just for sad cowboys, assless-chapstick.tumblr.com  
> git at me, boah


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